Jerome Charyn - Bronx Noir

The hunter reached into his duffel for the first time all day. “Do you even know who Carl Akeley was?” he asked.

Kushner, looking at the bag, gave a little shake of his head.

“A hundred years ago, a little less, Carl Akeley was one of the world’s great sportsmen. He loved to shoot.”

Out of the duffel came his Winchester. His elephant gun. There was already a .458 Magnum in its chamber.

“And then he saw that the hunt was becoming a farce, a slaughter. And so he gave it up.”

The hunter hefted the rifle in his hands. It was a good old gun. Like him, it was almost ready to retire, but he thought they both had one more shot in them.

“Akeley saw the day coming when the great herds would be nearly all gone, and the honorable hunters of past years would be replaced by amateurs, men who cared only for the kill, not for the contest. So he decided to fight to save what was left.”

The surgeon, his tan turned the yellow of rotting cheese, was staring at the gun. He didn’t appear to be listening.

The hunter sighed. It was useless trying to explain. He raised the gun to his shoulder.

The surgeon followed the movement with red-rimmed eyes. “What about the others?”

The hunter permitted himself a little smile. “The others,” he said, “are behind bars.”

The surgeon put his hand to his mouth. His gun bag lay forgotten at his feet. “And me?” he asked.

“You I wanted for myself.”

The hunter wrapped his finger around the cold steel of the trigger. With a sudden, smooth movement, he swiveled so the rifle was aimed directly at the surgeon’s head.

“Know what?” he said. “I think you should run.”

They’d all gone at last, taking their Scotch, their memories, and their anticipation with them.

The hunter sighed. His legs ached as he walked over to the refrigerator and took out a Tusker. Not a great lager, he had to admit, but still. It reminded him of the smell of the savanna, the safari of white clouds marching across the enormous Kenyan sky, the nasal bleats of the migrating wildebeest herds, and, further off, the grunting cough of a lion proclaiming its territory.

All a vanished world in a bottle of beer.

He sat down, unsnapped his cell phone from its clip on his belt, and did what he’d always done at the end of a long day’s hunt, just before he pulled the trigger.

He checked to make sure his escape route was rock-solid.

Kushner was shivering uncontrollably.

How cold is it?

“Run where?” he said.

“Wherever you like.” The hunter leaned forward, touching the barrel of the Winchester gently against the surgeon’s quivering temple. “But start now.”

With a sick, despairing look, Kushner turned and stumbled away. He nearly tripped, then regained his footing and ran, legs pumping, arms flailing, northward up the path. The hunter could hear him gasping out the word “Help” again and again as he ran, but he had no air in his lungs to shout, and anyway, there was no one around to hear him. The zoo was closed.

Fifty yards away he got, a hundred, before he came to a break in the wall of bushes. There he hesitated, looking back over his shoulder, as if he might spot Akeley in the gloom. As if there was any chance of ever seeing the hunter, if the hunter didn’t want to be seen.

For a moment more Kushner jittered on his feet. Then he reached a decision and turned, intending to go cross-country toward the road that bordered the zoo.

Akeley, having known he’d do that, waited.

For three seconds, four, the surgeon was out of sight. Then he reappeared in a clearing, a tiny gap where a vine-ridden maple tree had come down in a storm. He paused, looking around, listening for any signs of pursuit. But it was nearly dark now, and his pulse was pounding, so his eyes and ears told him nothing.

That’s how it usually went. The wildebeest about to be swatted to the ground by the lion, the Thomson’s gazelle the moment before it faces the cheetah’s rush. Victims so rarely recognize mortal danger until they feel its jaws around their throats.

Kushner straightened and took the first of four steps — just four — that would have carried him to the road and safety. At that moment, when escape suddenly seemed so close, so possible , the hunter’s index finger tightened.

The Winchester kicked hard against his shoulder. But he was used to it, and knew how to keep his head still, his eyes focused.

So he got to watch the .458 perform its own brand of surgery on the neurosurgeon’s brain.

The doors of the 5 train rattled open before him. He stepped into the nearly empty car, beginning the first leg of a journey that would land him in Panama late that night. There he would collect the money the Big Five had planned to dole out to the “winner” of the zoo slaughter.

And after Panama, where?

Africa, of course. Poor, besieged Africa, just a shadow of what it had once been, but still the only real place on earth. Sitting in this capsule of plastic and steel, he gazed at the continent’s limitless skies, tasted the wind-borne dust sweeping across its vast savannas.

The train’s doors half shut, then squealed and opened again. Two people entered.

The little blond girl and her mother.

They sat down opposite him. The woman, looking cold and worn, closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the plastic seat. For a minute or so, the girl played with a stuffed monkey on her lap. Then, as if sensing the hunter’s presence, she lifted her head and looked directly at him.

Her eyes widened and spots of color rose to her cheeks. He saw her lips move. You , she said silently.

He gave a little nod.

The girl stared, as if willing him not to disappear once more. Then she dug her elbow into her mother’s side.

“Honey!” The woman didn’t move. “Let me rest.”

“But Mom ,” the girl insisted, “it’s him! The man from the zoo.”

The woman sat up. Now her eyes were open.

“ See? ”

The woman saw. The corners of her mouth turned down.

Having savored her moment of vindication, the girl went back to her toy. But her mother scowled at the hunter all the way to East 86th Street, as if she knew — just knew — that he’d been stalking them all afternoon, and even now was planning to leap across the aisle and finish the job.

Van Cortlandt Park

All three of us turned sixteen halfway through the first summer of JFK’s presidency, when all things seemed possible. Lefty Trainor, Brendan O’Leary, and I had spent that summer caddying, drinking beer, and unsuccessfully trying to lure BICs, otherwise known as Bronx Irish Catholic girls, into Van Cortlandt Park. Okay, so maybe not all things seemed possible.

It was 9 p.m. on a hot Friday night in August and we were in our usual spot on the curb outside the White Castle under the el station at Broadway and 242 ndStreet. We were checking out the skirts and wolfing down belly bombs. Local street wisdom had it that the little cheeseburgers were the best way to soak up the quarts of Rupert Knickerbocker beer we’d imbibed across the street, in the park. Three quarts of warm beer for $1.19 on a park bench had loosened our vocal chords for a doo-wop session under a streetlight we’d smashed to make it harder for the cops to zero in on us. Cops didn’t like doo-wop or guys our age. But in the dark and without the element of surprise, they were no match for us in Vanny. As my mother said, “You ran through that park like a bunch of savages.”

“Here comes God’s gift to women,” Lefty said.